Walking with Turtles and Botanising on Asphalt: Chaplain as flâneur as Public Theologian

Abstract

This article contributes to practical theological conversations about the nature and practice of chaplaincy by envisioning chaplains as public theologians. Tracing a development from models rooted in traditional understandings of Christian ministry to more contextual and professionalised conceptions, it notes the resilience of ‘loitering with intent’ as a way of thinking about chaplaincy practice. The figure of the flâneur (stroller), particularly associated with Walter Benjamin and encountered in a range of disciplines (sociology, urban geography, critical and cultural theory), is used to give strategic significance to the sometimes marginal and liminal status of chaplains. Figuring the chaplain as flâneur achieves this by emphasising the importance of contextual experience, and describing the related practices of walking and reading the publicly significant institutions in which chaplains are embedded. This experience and the fruit of these practices (walking with turtles and botanising on asphalt) are shown to be valuable resources for public theology.